The space tourism race marked a milestone on Monday as British mogul Sir Richard Branson and American aerospace designer Burt Rutan waved to a crowd from inside the cabin of a jet plane that will carry a passenger spaceship to launch altitude. Branson and Rutan unveiled the White Knight Two, the world's largest all-carbon-composite airplane, before a crowd of engineers, dignitaries and space enthusiasts at the Mojave Air Space Port in the high desert north of Los Angeles.

Sir Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin Galactic said:
"With the end of the oil era approaching, and climate change progressing faster than most models have been predicting, the utilisation of space is essential not only for communications but also for the logistics of survival through things such as weather satellites, agriculture monitoring, GPS and climate science."

The four-engine jet, with its 140-foot single wing, is an engineering marvel.

White Knight Two is the brainchild of Rutan, who made history in 2004 when his SpaceShipOne became the first private, manned craft to reach space.

White Knight Two's long-awaited rollout, a year after a deadly explosion rocked Rutan's test site, is the first tangible sign of progress toward making space tourism a reality.

AP